Heritage buildings

If people visit, work or stay in your heritage building, you will need to comply with fire safety law. You need to carry out a regular risk assessment and make sure you put in place steps to reduce your risk of fire. 

As the risks in heritage buildings can be complex, we would strongly advise you to consult a qualified fire safety consultant for advice.

Read our guidance on fire risk assessments.

A fire safety handbook should cover steps you’ll take to prevent a fire and what to do in the event of a fire. If you have people working for you then you should use the fire safety handbook for staff training so everyone is clear on what to do if there’s a fire. 

The handbook should be kept up to date and be accessible to any authorised person who needs to use it. The contents of the handbook will depend on the size and use of the building. 

What to include

• Fire risk assessment.
• Fire safety policy.
• Information for any fire protection systems – including service history, manuals and instructions. This should include details of any upgrades or modifications.
• Procedures for working with the fire and rescue service.
• Your business continuity plan.
• An accurate set of floor plans detailing the floor and general layouts including:
  • fire doors
  • fire alarm devices including call points, detectors (smoke/heat), sounders; marked up with zone plans and device detail
  • smoke ventilation, smoke control systems, fire dampers where applicable
  • emergency lighting
  • fire hydrants, dry risers, fire extinguishers 
  • gas, water and electric shut off points
  • location of hazardous materials, plant rooms and other high-risk rooms
  • building fire compartmentation and appropriate fire resistance (30, 60, 120 minutes) where required
  • details of engineered solutions or systems provided and any constraints or actions required if layouts change.
• Any improvements, adjustments or the introduction of new equipment for fire safety should be recorded and the handbook should be revised and kept up to date. 

Fire strategy

For more complex buildings, we recommend having a fire strategy document. This should be written by a competent person with experience in fire safety requirements for historic buildings. 

The purpose of the fire strategy is to formalise the base fire safety requirements for the building and it can be used as the basis for developing and preparing the fire risk assessment, fire safety management arrangements and other relevant building strategies such as security strategy. Generally, the overall aim is to keep people safe, but other objectives such as property protection will significantly impact the fire strategy for a historic building. The fire strategy can be used to make sure adequate levels of fire safety management, prevention and protection are adopted.

Your risk assessment should identify the type, level and frequency of training required. 

Some of the training you should consider includes:

• what to do in the event of a fire
• how the fire safety systems operate
• familiarisation of the building’s emergency plans
• salvage plans and the role of staff.

Staff with specific roles or responsibilities may require further training such as:

• investigating the source of an alarm activation
• searching the building for occupants
• liaising with emergency services
• out of hours procedures.

We recommend that you include fire in your emergency plan. This will help you organise your plan of action in the event of a fire.  

Your plan should be regularly updated and should be seen as a living document. Any time something changes then your plan should be updated. 

Historic England has guidance and templates for writing an emergency response plan for historic buildings. 

Make a salvage plan

You should have a detailed salvage plan so you know what the priority items are in the event of a fire. This will help firefighters prioritise items to salvage from the building. If it is safe to enter the building we will try and salvage items but this may not always be possible. 

As part of your salvage plan, you should consider the impact of firefighting activities on your property e.g. damage from water or the impact of smoke and fire. 

The key to reducing loss in buildings is gaining an understanding of the most common causes of fire and how to prevent them.  

Common causes of fire include:

• building work
• electrical faults –defective wiring or faulty appliances
• sparks from open fires, stoves, grates and hearths
• defective flues can lead to chimney fires
• lightning strikes
• candles
• lighting
• rodents chewing through cables
• arson.

You should consider these risks when developing your fire risk assessment and fire strategy. Ensure that if anything changes, for example, during building work, you include this in your risk assessment and associated documents. 

Some of the measures detailed below will help you to lower the risk of fire. These should be considered as part of your risk assessment. We would strongly advise getting a competent person to help you with your risk assessment and assessing different aspects of your building.